Gordon Tullock on Economics and the Everyman

|Peter Boettke|

In an essay responding to Dan Klein's "A Plea to Economists Who Favor Liberty," Eastern Economic Journal (Spring 2001), Tullock only has one slight objection to Klein's essay, namely that economists can do well by doing good. The example he used was Henry Hazlitt.

I do think the well-intentioned economists who spend some time attempting to improve economic policy by addressing the common man or even the government official will benefit the world and will not injure his own career. He may actually benefit it. Normally, however, these articles, speeches, and even letters to the editor will not help him much in his career. I regard this as a serious criticism of the economic profession. The only reason for economics is to improve policy, mainly political policy but to a minor extent policy followed by businesses. To take an outstanding example, Henry Hazlitt was for many years the Economic Correspondent for the New York Times. During all this period, the New York Times opposed minimum wages. No doubt, this was an example of his influence. When he retired, it became an advocate of minimum wages. Granted the influence of the New York Times, it seems likely that Hazlitt did more to improve economic policy than any five full professors of economics during this period. Nevertheless, he would not have been regarded as suitable for appointment in any leading university. No doubt he did well financially, and for that matter his popular books sold well. Nevertheless, the economic aristocracy never recognized him.

Tullock continues by arguing that:

The rather low status of teaching, particularly elementary economics teaching, is indicative of the problem. Since, to make an embarrassing confession, I myself am not fond of teaching, I benefit from my high status. At my rank, I have few classes, and in general the students are good and interested. It is quite a different matter for those people teaching gigantic elementary courses. Nevertheless, from the standpoint of influencing future policy, the elementary teacher is more important than I. I hope that my work will trickle down to the elementary teacher and through him to the large number of potential voters, potential Congressman, and potential newspapermen in his class. This is however merely hope. I don't actually do anything to make that more probable. It is true that my writings are, generally speaking, much more accessible to the ordinary person than most economic writings. This may help somewhat.

Nevertheless, the present situation is in my opinion very undesirable. Economics is a policy science and we should be trying to influence policy.

Comments

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I consider Tullock argument to be an important and valuable one.

Think how even such a brilliant economic analyst as Frederic Bastiat, whose writings have influenced generations of people with logic, insight, and wit, has been looked down upon by the professional economists, for the most part. Schumpeter referred to him as a mere "journalist." What a terrible label, clearly, to have around one's neck!

And Henry Hazlitt, as Tullock emphasized, was never taken seriously by the economics profession. Yet, any one who has read his books and the thousands of articles over a life time of writing must be impressed by both his knowledge of economics and his creative and clear way of explaining economic ideas for the "common man."

For myself, I have never tired of regularly, over my academic career, teaching principles of economics. Why? Because it is the only course in which most of those students will ever be introduced to the "miracle of the market," the "invisible hand," to "what is seen, and what is not seen," to the common sense of the logic of human action and decision-making in the associative relationships of the market; to the nature of free market capitalism vs. socialism vs. the interventionist-welfare state.

You can leave in the minds of many of those students an understanding that, hopefully, will make them better and more informed citizens when they think about economic policy, even if they long forget many of the specific details they had to learn to pass the exams.

Mises and Machlup were certainly "serious" and "scholarly" economists. Yet, in the Vienna of their time, in the years between the two World Wars, they often wrote articles for the Viennese newspapers explaining the consequences and dangers of misguided economic policies, and the benefits of more free market alternatives.

And think of Milton Friedman. His Nobel Prize was won for his scholarly works. But where has been his greatest impact in society? His numerous articles (including many years of writing a "Newsweek" column after Hazlitt stepped down), and his "popular" books. These have left a deep (positive) mark on economic policy thinking in our time.

In my view, Dan Mitchell's daily blog missives on the economic absurdities of government policy are worth hundreds of articles in the AER. And Don Boudreaux's brilliant Bastiat-like almost daily "letters to the editor" on Cafe Hayek are more insightful than the contributions of several economic Nobel Laureates.

Not to speak of Walter Williams and the sharp pen of Thomas Sowell.

May a "thousand flowers bloom" of more such people -- and those who teach the next generations of students the principles and logic of market.

Tullock is wrong and right here. In my opinion, it depends on the person's talents and abilities on what is the right course of action. For example, would the economics profession be better off had Tullock decided to become a journalist? Probably not.

Some people should write in academic journals and some should promote the subject to the mainstream and in elementary classes. The problem as I see it is that most economists spend their time trying to get into economic journals when they really have nothing worthwhile to contribute. They're not Friedmans, Hayeks, Tullocks, etc. They're at best second hand dealers in knowledge desperately pretending that they're not. 95% of economists should be teaching to masses rather than publishing articles which don't even interest those in their own profession.

On a side note, there is one problem with Tullock's train of thought here. Sure, comparing Hazlitt to some professor blows the professors away. But those usually aren't our choices in life. How many people can say, "Well my choice is between becoming James Buchanan or Henry Hazliit?"

The real question should be a more realistic one. What makes more impact? Becoming a journalist at my local newspaper or small noted blogger or becoming a professor at a no-name college spending one's time publishing academic articles about the economics of 15th century serfs and their production of wheat.